Conditions and Diseases

Physicians writing on KevinMD about the diseases they treat and the people who have them: cancer and its screening arguments, pain and the drugs that treat it, diabetes and the obesity argument, mental illness and who gets treated for it, and the decisions at the end of a life. Five maintained records draw on this archive: Cancer: what physicians say, in their own words, Opioids: what physicians and pain patients say, in their own words, End of life: what physicians say, in their own words, Diabetes and obesity: what physicians say, in their own words, and Mental health: what psychiatrists and physicians say, in their own words.

How to avoid COVID-19 infection at work: tips from an infectious disease physician

Michael Edmond, MD, MPH

March 19, 2020

The physician workforce is one of the most valuable resources of any hospital, and in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak, we need to do everything possible to ensure that physicians stay healthy. Like other hospital epidemiologists, I spend a lot of time thinking about practical ways to reduce the risk of infection. So to that end, I want to offer some suggestions for reducing your risk of acquiring COVID-19 …

The COVID-19 breakthroughs are coming

Peter D. Sleman, JD

Conditions and Diseases

March 19, 2020

An excerpt from The Physician Inventor: The Doctor’s Handbook to Patenting Medical Devices and Methods.

Recent New York Times articles document the growing concern that the United States will not have enough ventilators to fight the coronavirus pandemic. In one article, it is estimated that the state of New York …

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The COVID-19 breakthroughs are coming

A letter to President Trump from an emergency physician

Dale Cotton, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 19, 2020

Dear Mr. President,

I write to you now to congratulate you. You are at the cusp of a moment that historians will note catapulted you into one of the great chapters of the American story. Your name will forever be listed among the great men of the ages. The businessman turned TV star turned chief of the greatest battle against the most feared pandemic of the age. The man …

COVID-19 and the physician’s oath

Vincent-Arthur Bacay, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 19, 2020

COVID-19 started to really hit home this week. I hadn’t been aware of its severity because, honestly, I was too busy balancing residency, being a husband, and a father to keep up to date on the daily news. Now it’s unavoidable with school closures, travel restrictions, and limited grocery store stock. With worried texts and phone calls, my family and friends wanted to know any updates and if coronavirus was …

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COVID-19 and the physician’s oath

Treat your sleep like the vacation it is

Jay Puangco, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 19, 2020

It’s common knowledge that a good night’s sleep prepares us for a successful day, but I like to think of it the other way around: Good planning for sleep during the day can ensure successful sleep at night.

As a neurologist who specializes in sleep, I tell my patients that what they eat during the day, how often they exercise, how they manage stress, and how much screen time they get …

On the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic

Michael Pappas, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 19, 2020

Coronavirus has officially hit the United States. The estimated numbers of infected are likely a gross underestimate of the actual number of cases, as the U.S. has only tested a small proportion of the population. Researchers at Johns Hopkins estimate there could be between 50,000 and half a million cases …

Medical community recommendations for a better COVID-19 response

Maxine Dexter, MD and Smitha R. Chadaga, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 19, 2020

We have lost our chance to contain this pandemic and are now facing an unmitigated medical disaster. This administration’s response has actively undermined our ability to care for patients by perpetuating misinformation and downplaying the looming threat this infection poses to the public. Ensuring health security is the fundamental duty and responsibility of government at all levels, and we implore you to prioritize protecting our people over political and economic …

I’ve been on a ventilator before, so I’d like to sit this pandemic out

Lisa Goodman-Helfand

Conditions and Diseases

March 19, 2020

I have bled out during emergency surgery and been revived by the expert trauma and transplant team who raced into my operating room.

I have had liter upon liter of donated blood transfused into my grey lifeless body.

I survived months on a ventilator in an intensive care unit.

I have had my lungs fill up with fluid, hurling me into impending respiratory failure.

I have heard the emergency team stampede down the hospital …

The worst-case scenario for our hospitals in a severe pandemic

Susan Shannon, RN

Conditions and Diseases

March 19, 2020

I wish that I didn’t have the experience of working 34 years as a nurse. I know the big picture in a hospital. A recent article stated that the Twin Cities, where I live, has 500 ICU beds, 450 ventilators. As of last Friday, those were 95 percent full.

Apparently, there are new CDC guidelines stating that healthcare workers can wear surgical masks when N95 masks are not available, but the …

Coronavirus can be controlled, but we must embrace sacrifice

Cory Michael, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 19, 2020

In the midst of this coronavirus pandemic, a friend of mine relayed a troubling story to me recently.

My friend is a dermatologist who is 9-months pregnant, living and working in a county with no known community spread of the novel coronavirus. After spending time examining a 19-year-old with acne, the patient told her that she was under self-quarantine due to exposure to the coronavirus in New York. Her college in New …

I’m grateful my father never lived to see the COVID-19 outbreak

Christine Van Ramshorst, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 18, 2020

My dad was a baseball enthusiast and a connoisseur of fried calamari and dark chocolate. He had a genius-level IQ and knew the answers to obscure Jeopardy questions. He would beat you at any trivia game. He was an avid reader, typically reading at least three books at once and still able to follow the plotline in them all. He was a history buff and a murder mystery fanatic. He …

The opioid crisis is real. But so is pain.

Anonymous

Conditions and Diseases

March 18, 2020

“I’m not impressed with his pain.”

“I only give Norco if I see a bone sticking out.”

“She says her pain is a 10/10 but …”

On any given shift in the emergency room, I hear some version of these said by residents or fellow attendings. And whenever I hear these phrases, I think to myself, “When did we stop treating pain?”

I’m not talking about chronic pain. I feel terribly for …

Frontline clinicians deserve hazard pay

Josh McKinney, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 18, 2020

These are interesting times. Our schools are shut down. Transportation halted. Businesses shuttered. Public spaces abandoned. Cities locked down. Stock markets crashing. It is the greatest disruption to life we have faced since 9/11, and this will last much longer. It’s not hyperbole to say that we are on a wartime footing, and every aspect of life has been affected by this battle with COVID-19. A national emergency has been …

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Frontline clinicians deserve hazard pay

Innovation in the time of COVID-19

Amy Baruch, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 18, 2020

Necessity is the mother of invention, and in no time is invention more necessary than during a global pandemic. Starting with the drive-through testing clinics pioneered overseas that spread to the United States (big shout-out to the University of Washington for putting step-by-step instructions for how to start your own drive-through clinic on their COVID-19 resource site, to the “telephone booth” testing facilities in South Korea, …

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Innovation in the time of COVID-19

My colleagues are nervous. My patients are crying. And yet, we are here.

Ashley Sumrall, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 18, 2020

Do you remember when you were a bright-eyed pre-med student, head bowed at the computer, typing your personal statement? Type, type … backspace, backspace … type. You didn’t want to use the phrase “to help people” in your statement as your reason for wanting to be a physician. Maybe you said something like me. I mentioned how there were no doctors in my family, and I wanted to be the …

Pollution in China and Iran are worsening the coronavirus

Devra Davis, PhD, MPH

Conditions and Diseases

March 18, 2020

The baffling spread of the novel coronavirus has given many scientists and policymakers pause. There may be some important clues in the patterns the disease is leaving that tell us quite a bit about what conditions can hasten its spread and even worsen its lethality. So far, the areas of the world where most people are dying of the disease – called the case-fatality rate – are densely populated cities …

COVID-19 is not a cause for panic. It is cause for action.

Virginia Moye, MD, MPH

Conditions and Diseases

March 18, 2020

As many of my Facebook friends know, I have posted a great many updates about COVID-19, both public health recommendations and news updates, but this is my personal plea. As a physician with a public health degree, looking at the data, looking at what’s happening in other countries, and looking at how things are progressing in the United States, it is clear to me that if we don’t take dramatic …

Preventing depression in the wake of COVID-19

Michael Feldmeier, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 18, 2020

As I drove back home from the hospital yesterday, I noticed that traffic was lighter. Then tonight, as I walked my dog in the early evening, I cannot help but notice the lack of foot traffic, the relative emptiness of the street. There are others like me walking their dogs, but as I pass the popular coffee shop, I notice the quiet. It is not a calm quiet, but an …

In the midst of a pandemic, this nurse feels betrayed

Anonymous

Conditions and Diseases

March 18, 2020

This nurse notified his hospital unit director testing availability for novel coronavirus on January 26, 2020. This nurse asked his hospital unit director if signs could be posted discouraging visitation unless necessary on March 10, 2020.

The response was, “People need to take care of themselves.”

She said this standing next to the signs that restrict children under the age of 12 from coming into the hospital for RSV season. This nurse …